The visual analysis of emotional actions

Abstract

Is the visual analysis of human actions modulated by the emotional content of those actions? This question is motivated by a consideration of the neuroanatomical connections between visual and emotional areas. Specifically, the superior temporal sulcus (STS), known to play a critical role in the visual detection of action, is extensively interconnected with the amygdala, a center for emotion processing. To the extent that amygdala activity influences STS activity, one would expect to find systematic differences in the visual detection of emotional actions. A series of psychophysical studies tested this prediction. Experiment 1 identified point-light walker movies that convincingly depicted five different emotional states: happiness, sadness, neutral, anger, and fear. In Experiment 2, participants performed a walker detection task with these movies. Detection performance was systematically modulated by the emotional content of the gaits. Participants demonstrated the greatest visual sensitivity to angry walkers. The results of Experiment 3 suggest that local velocity cues to anger may account for high false alarm rates to the presence of angry gaits. These results support the hypothesis that the visual analysis of human action depends upon emotion processes.

Event-Related Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation of Posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus Improves the Detection of Threatening Postural Changes in Human Bodies

“…Improved accuracy in detecting threatening postural changes after right pSTS magnetic stimulation with respect to right EBA and left vPM likely occurred because of the selective sensitivity of this area to emotional (socially relevant) body postures. A variety of functional and behavioral studies support the notion that the amygdalae may strengthen the visual processing of emotional stimuli, which is thought to be carried out in extrastriate areas (Morris et al, 1998;Vuilleumier et al, 2004;Chouchourelou et al, 2006). Although in the present experiment it is difficult to attribute the rTMS effect to perceptual or memory processes, the reported modulation is in line with previous findings (Töpper et al, 1998;Grosbras and Paus, 2003;Hayward et al, 2004;Pulvermüller et al, 2005;D'Ausilio et al, 2009).…”

Detecting deception in a bluffing body: The role of expertise

“…Participants in this experiment saw a small number of moving dots representing the locations of the actor's limb joints ( Figure 1B). When set in motion, such stimuli create a vivid impression of human movement (Johansson, 1973) and allow observers to infer extensive information about the actor, including identity (Loula et al, 2005) and emotional state (Chouchourelou et al, 2006). No static pictures were used in this experiment, because observers cannot detect the human form in static point-light displays.…”

When anticipation beats accuracy: Threat alters memory for dynamic scenes

“…Bottom-up mechanisms A compelling literature has demonstrated privileged processing for evolutionarily relevant threat stimuli, such as spiders (Öhman et al, 2001), angry faces and gaits (Chouchourelou, Matsuka, Harber, & Shiffrar, 2006;Frischen, Eastwood, & Smilek, 2008), and more modern threats such as guns (Loftus et al, 1987). In contrast, the effects shown in the present studies depend on semantic interpretation of a visually neutral situation.…”